8 JUNGLE ISLAND 



easier and cost less than packing shiploads across 

 the Panama hills. Except where the natives kept 

 a path worn, the king's highways went back to 

 jungle. 



It was gold that opened the roads again. In 

 1849, another hundred years later, gold was dis- 

 covered in California, and eastern Americans who 

 heard the news were in wild haste to reach it. 

 They might go in three ways: in saiHng ships 

 around the Horn as the whalers had done, or 

 across the untraveled plains and mountains of 

 western United States, or by the Forty-niners' 

 route shown on the map, south to Panama, across 

 by river and boat, and up the Pacific coast by 

 ship to California. This last way usually took 

 less time for passengers than either of the others, 

 and it became once more the road of the gold 

 hunters. 



Just as in the time of the first Spaniards, men 

 began to plan for a canal that would make an 

 easy water highway across the Isthmus. Many 

 attempts were made up and down the coast in 

 different places, but all failed. The plan that 

 seemed for a time most likely to succeed was 

 that of a French company which began digging 

 in 1 88 1. They decided to cut through the hills 

 from Colon to Panama along the hne where the 

 Canal goes today, and work has never stopped 

 entirely from that day to this, though the French 

 themselves were not able to finish it. 



